Hi,

Firstly I'm in Australia and VFR. I have a Garmin III Pilot, but am also
about to purchase an iPaq PDA. Rather than upgrade to a colour GARMIN
(296/396) at megabucks I thought I could get similar functionality using
the PDA. Costings seem to be PDA nil (it's a sunk cost I'm going to buy
it anyway), Bluetooth GPS AUS$100 or so on e-bay, and the software
(Anywhere map special US$95 and NavGPS US$290).

The Anywheremap seems the standout bargain, at current exchange rates
I'm looking at about an all up cost of AUS$232 for software and GPS.

I'm e-mailing both companies with these questions, but I'm pretty darned
sure they will recommend their own product. For those that have used
either or both (and compared to say a G296):

1. Which of these two would you buy, and why?
2. Functionality compared to Garmin's offering?
3. Ease of use compared to Garmin?
4. Base mapping (Garmin has the intl Pacific Base map for Aus). The
Jepp DB has all of the avaiation info including control zones etc etc.
Do these systems have at least the same info depicted?
5. Updates - If I don't update the Garmin it still works with the 'old'
database. Do these keep functioning without updating the database. I
have no real reason to update more than once a year or so?
6. Any other advice much appreciated....

reply to group or kevinblack at bigblue dot net dot au.

Thanks,
Kevin